{"id":68447,"date":"2018-03-23T00:00:08","date_gmt":"2018-03-23T00:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=68447"},"modified":"2018-04-19T16:14:40","modified_gmt":"2018-04-19T16:14:40","slug":"album-review-crisix-against-the-odds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-crisix-against-the-odds\/","title":{"rendered":"CRISIX – Against The Odds (2018) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

CRISIX
Against The Odds<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nListenable (2018)<\/span>
Rating: 6\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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I\u2019m on the fence with Against The Odds<\/em>, the new record from Spanish thrashers Crisix. To be fair it starts strong with \u2018Get Out Of My Head\u2019, but it\u2019s their choice of song material, overall, that throws me. \u2018The North Remembers\u2019, for example, is inspired by Game Of Thrones<\/em>, while \u2018Xenomorph Blood\u2019 is a tribute to the movie Alien<\/em> and \u2018Prince Of Saiyans\u2019 is an ode to the Japanese manga and anime series Dragon Ball<\/em>. It all just feels very high school to me.<\/p>\n

Other songs like \u2018Technophiliac\u2019 deal with our over reliance on technology, while \u2018Leech Breeder\u2019 addresses people in power lording over the powerless. So, song-wise, there\u2019s a weird disconnect with that which is somewhat serious versus the pop culture stuff which seems trite and frivolous.<\/p>\n

Two things come to mind. One, the choice of songs and lyrical material is questionable at best. Two, because the music is so powerful, so on mark, you tend to connect more with the music and not the songs, and as a result the music overshadows everything. And then there\u2019s this strange meandering into hardcore territory that, although it sounds good, it seems out of place. It\u2019s this lack of cohesion that puts me on the fence \u2013 the music\u2019s good but the songs are, well, not where they should be.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re strictly into music and don\u2019t care about songs, or song lyrics, you\u2019ll enjoy this record. And live I\u2019m sure these boys throw down hard, no doubt about that. Crisix is a band that\u2019s on the same level, musically, as the likes of Warbringer, Havok and Death Angel, but that\u2019s where the comparison ends, unfortunately.<\/p>\n

Remember I mentioned the hardcore thing earlier? Its two songs \u2013 \u2018Perserverance\u2019 and \u2018Cut The Shit\u2019. The first song, \u2018Perserverance\u2019, is so straight up Hatebreed I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if Jamey Jasta is looking for a royalty check in his mailbox as we speak. And \u2018Cut The Shit\u2019 sounds like Sick Of It All, or Madball, trying to lay down thrash. This isn\u2019t a bad thing, but just out of step with the record as a whole. <\/p>\n

It brings into question where this band\u2019s identity is, where it lies? Nuclear Assault had this type of thing down to an art by mixing punk and hardcore seamlessly, while Crisix comes across looking for that balance. So I don\u2019t see this band at Nuclear Assault\u2019s level just yet when it comes to this stylistic fusion of sound. I know it sounds like that I\u2019m hating this record, but really I don\u2019t… it just caught me off guard. <\/p>\n

Crisix has the obvious skills to pay the metal bills, but the choice of song material and their oddball dance with hardcore leaves me disconnected. And for that, I\u2019m half battle vest in and half battle vest out. Musically it\u2019s a monster, but song-wise it\u2019s all over the place.<\/p>\n

If you want a more refined version of Crisix, then check out Finland\u2019s Lost Society, does that make sense? But buy Against The Odds<\/em>, because this band deserves it. I believe that given a few years and a few more records from now you\u2019ll be dealing with a beast of such musical refinement they might just be the next Megadeth or Metallica. But right now they\u2019re kind of all over the place, musically.<\/p>\n

Theron Moore<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CRISIXAgainst The Odds Listenable (2018)Rating: 6\/10 I\u2019m on the fence with Against The Odds, the new record from Spanish thrashers Crisix. To be fair it starts strong with \u2018Get Out Of My Head\u2019, but it\u2019s their choice of song material, overall, that throws me. \u2018The North Remembers\u2019, for example, is inspired by Game Of Thrones, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,3949],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-crisix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68447"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68450,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68447\/revisions\/68450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}